Hacker News Reader

Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

It's of little consolation having the price of your phone decline when the price of education, healthcare and a roof over your head have skyrocketed.

Even if that were not the case, it's abundantly clear that geometrically increasing consolidated economic power is being translated into consolidated raw political power (which is zero sum). The events of the last few months and history in general have proved that this is very, very dangerous.

We couldn't play flappy birds on a mini computer in our pockets in 1970, though, so I guess that makes all that r>g and compound interest accumulating in 0.1% pockets worthwhile.

View on HN

It's interesting that the 3 things you give as an example have sky rocketed in cost not because of the 1%, but mostly due to government interference in the free market. Government backed loans have driven up the cost of education and housing. Local governments limiting housing construction have further driven up the cost in many areas. Government created monopolies like the AMA have driven up the cost of healthcare.

> Government backed loans have driven up the cost of education and housing

Yes, housing would be cheaper if 40% of the population were living on the street because they couldn't afford a mortgage. Lots more supply to go around.

Blaming the AMA for healthcare costs is a unique take. While I can't say they are completely innocent, they are absolutely not a major factor in your insurance quote.

Most healthcare expenditure goes to paying wages; doctors and nurses' wages make up a very large proportion of insurance expenditures, and their respective associations have successfully restricted supply to drive up their wages. The AMA is doing a very good job of making doctor's salaries in the USA much higher than in most of the developed world.

It's not interesting at all.

When the government created undischargeable-in-bankruptcy loans for 17 year olds to get them into debt for life so they would need to be pliant, obedient workers for businesses owned by the 1%, on whose behalf did you think they were doing it?

The students'?

Exactly this. As a college student looking at the outside world, I'm truly seeing how fortunate I am to have a family with the means to support me through my education. Pre-scholarship, my tuition bill comes out to > $10k per year (and that's not counting things like housing, and freshmen need to live in the dorms with a dining plan... that's another $10k that doesn't include the summer or winter breaks). The total estimated cost for an on-campus student is $25,000 per year.

Looking at the value of my family's house, it's increased almost 40% in three years which seems like it's an insane amount of growth for any asset. Education and houses just seem like they're unreasonably expensive at this point and I honestly don't know how you're expected to break into this market without already owning a house or something along those lines.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com